My attempt at leaving Facebook behind were thwarted today upon learning that an Aurora City Council member, a state representative from Aurora, and a prominent candidate for Aurora City Council all have profiles on the social networking site.
Looking up these pages was far too intriguing to let the experiment stand.
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. I must stand by anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he does wrong.”
In “The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story,” author Adam Schrager has found just the right brush with which to paint the
Carr made his living early in life in newspapering and law, most notably as a lawyer in Antonito and a
Widowed and charged with caring for his then-teenage children, Carr reluctantly carried the GOP mantle, vowing to bring financial restraint and smart spending to a state woefully in the red.
As Schrager points out, Carr attained great popularity beyond
Carr stayed home to handle the business of
With the new decade came the attack on American forces at
When others sought to expel or imprison Japanese-American citizens, Carr would not bend in insisting they be treated as any American should be according to our Constitution.
When the vast majority of Coloradans angrily decried measures to allow internment camps and relocation efforts in their state – not for moral objection, but out of racial hatred – Carr held to his conviction that his state would do what was asked of it in wartime, no matter how unpopular the move was.
It’s an amazing story usually reserved for the realm of fiction, such as the advocacy of Atticus Finch in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Schrager does a supreme job at presenting a rich historical narrative for much of this incredible story.
If there is any knock against “The Principled Politician,” it is not knowing where to draw the line in presenting the wealth of sources speaking to the anti-Japanese sentiment that existed.
In Schrager’s defense, it is hard for some of today’s readers to comprehend the post-Pearl Harbor anger that existed in
Overall, the author has certainly done his homework and presented this history in a timely and accessible way without veering far into the greater story of World War II or the Japanese-American internment.
This is the Ralph Carr story, and Schrager’s “Principled Politician” serves as one of the finer histories about
If John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" gets to be an official state song, I can't see any reason to leave Joe Walsh out of the fun. Not only would it honor the most talented member of the Eagles (which isn't saying much, in my book), but it would remind all Coloradans (Coloradoans?) that someone other than Peter Frampton can use a talk box and rock.
I'm totally serious. Where is the statehouse leadership on this?
As I write this, Day One of the Social Networking Experiment is drawing to a close.
Some 20 hours ago, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account and set my MySpace profile to friends-only private. I can't say there was any real reason other than the fact that I want to spend less time on things that keep me from reaching my real goals.
I still check my e-mail more than I ever need to, and my cell phone still rings and receives text messages more than I think necessary, but I wonder how many hours (or even days) have been lost to social networking.
Some might say this is a step backwards in a world that's increasingly connected thanks in large part to Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and countless other social-networking venues.
But in one day, I found the time to finish a book I've been reading, catch up on HBO's "John Adams" mini-series, get into work more than an hour earlier than I usually do on Monday and get enough sleep to not wake up feeling like I've just had more than my fair share of blood drawn.
I've never been one to be addicted to social networking sites, going back to my senior year in college when Facebook first gained popularity on U.S. campuses. If anything, I've found them to be ways for me to spend a good deal of time pondering why someone I barely ever spoke to in middle or high school would want to now consider me a "friend."
So far, so good... but how long until I feel lonely? Only time will tell.
UPDATE: I should note that throughout the course of the day I have, out of habit, tried to log into Facebook three times, each time receiving a message that I would need to reactivate my account. I resisted the urge each time. I guess this speaks to how routine it had become — and if my little experiment proves what I have set out to prove — and how horrible it is to routinely waste so much time without thinking about it.
Are you kidding me?
For starters, I was totally unaware that "American Idol" was still on the air when it started its most recent season. I figured Simon Cowell would have decided he didn't need to degrade himself for insane amounts of money after becoming a multi-millionaire doing the first few seasons of "Idol" and countless talent-related reality competitions across the pond... that, or the possibility of Paula Abdul being committed or Randy Jackson rejoining the re-formed Journey. Any of these would be good reasons why the show would not continue... aside from the utter horror of Amateur Hour.
But anywho, now the controversy "Idol" has brought upon America — not a sex scandal or lip syncing — is over whether or not one of the contestants "stole" the "arrangement" for his rendition of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" from some band no one has ever heard over that covered the song some time ago.
Judge for yourself:
With little doubt, the home opener for the Colorado Rockies, April 4 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, will see a soldout crowd of ravenous Rox fans ready to dust off their old mitts and hope not only for the chance at snagging a foul ball but also for another World Series berth.
But that's not to say the Rockies, or Major League Baseball for that matter, are doing so well these days.
A caveat: I've never been the kind of person to show up for Opening Day. I've always seen it as an overhyped event where the ownership can bet on a sellout crowd before ticket sales trickle on down. Maybe it's generational: I've been able to cover multiple teams from the start of spring training for more than a decade now thanks to the Internet — it's not like Opening Day is the first I've seen or heard from the major leagues since last October.
And therein lies one of the problems: The Steroids Era has endured another winter of utter embarassment, with the Mitchell Report, Brian McNamee, Andy Pettite, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and all the rest turning a Capitol Hill drama into the biggest sports story of the past few months outside of the Patriots' 18-1 season.
Even if you were still bleeding Rockies purple after they were swept in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox (who no longer deserve the 'lovable loser' tag), it's hard to swallow 'Spring baseball is here!' after hours and hours of media coverage of the performance-enhancing drugs scandal. Maybe I'm too casual a fan, but I don't know if I'll get the bad taste out of my mouth until after the NFL Draft.
The biggest issue here is how this hurts Major League Baseball, and in my mind, the Rockies. The Rockies, in my estimation, have been set up for disaster. There's no way of recapturing the incredible run they had to make the playoffs and then sweep their way into the Fall Classic. As smart as it was to not pay Kaz Matsui more money than he's really worth, he'll surely be missed this season. Also, the euphoria of re-signing so many core players like Troy Tulowitzki and Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe will inevitably be washed away by the spanking the young pitching staff will endure at the hands of some greatly improved National League foes, including Joe Torre's Dodgers, the reloaded New York Mets and the always-dangerous Arizona Diamondbacks.
It's too great of a high to come down from — and adding in all the other problems that plague America's Once and Future Pastime, that great season the Rockies gave us in 2007 is nothing more than a sweet memory, ready to be forgotten as soon as the regular season record dips below .500 sometime in June.
This isn't to say the Rockies won't be a good team, a playoff-caliber team this year — it's just many of us won't be able to see it for what it's worth until the season is already halfway over.
Another good Aurora-related video from YouTube, this time from the folks at the Denver chapter of Habitat for Humanity featuring a time lapse of their first day on the job back in 2006 when they built 15 Habitat homes in a week at Tollgate Crossing.
One thing that doesn't make it into most media channels is good, honest praise for a job well done. It's almost clichéd to say that newspapers, radio, TV news and blogs tend to focus on the negative and not the positive.
Let me take this opportunity to do my small part in going against the tide: You know you've got a good thing going, Aurora Central Library, when you've got more than a dozen folks lined up outside your doors before opening every day.
Waiting that extra hour to get in on Friday (as opposed to the usual 9 a.m. opening) is very much worth it, even if you're just looking for a place to escape the world for just an hour and read with the sunlight beaming through the big panes of glass separating the books and people from the bustle of the outside world.
So again, kudos to Central.
Overhead on the police scanner about 10:36 p.m. Tuesday, March 4:
A delivery driver for a certain pizza joint (I'll call it Padre Juan's) was reported driving down Chambers in excess of 100 mph.
Me, I try to make my own pizza when possible, but I don't know whether that driver deserves a tip for working extra hard to get things delivered while it's warm, or whether it's better to tip off the cops about a maniac driving faster than the century mark in a residential area.
I'll quickly add to the dearth of educated guesses concerning today's set of primary and caucus voting:
• Hillary Clinton will find a reason or two to stay in the race, regardless of her performance in Ohio and Texas. Even if Obama takes both states, I don't see this race ending before Pennsylvania unless HRC is absolutely blown out today.
• Obama will not score his knockout; the recent swing in momentum toward Clinton (as witnessed in a number of recent polls and surveys) will keep Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island close, with HRC scoring at least one win in the big delegate states of Texas and Ohio.
• The Dallas Morning News endorsement of Mike Huckabee will have a larger-than-expected effect on GOP returns. I think more and more people are considering the possibility of John McCain serving one term before letting whoever ends up as veep take up the Republican banner in 2012. I wouldn't be surprised if Huckabee or Romney ends up on the ticket with McCain, just as Democratic runner-up John Edwards ran with John Kerry in 2004.
• Conversely, there's no chance in heck of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket... Look for John Edwards to be on the shortlist for Obama and Bill Richardson on HRC's shortlist for vice president.
• Rush Limbaugh will say something absolutely asinine Wednesday regarding Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Howard Dean.
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